


Mirror, Mirror, Morgana

by misscam



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-29
Updated: 2010-09-29
Packaged: 2017-10-17 12:36:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/176917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misscam/pseuds/misscam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>There are these dreams Morgana has.</i> [Morgana, Merlin, Arthur, Gwen, Uther, Gaius, Morgause, Mordred. Implied Morgana/Merlin and Arthur/Gwen and a few others, if you want to read it like that.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirror, Mirror, Morgana

**Author's Note:**

> No real spoilers for series 3, but alluding to events therein. Thanks for clevermonikerr for inspiring this through a discussion about Morgana – and for lovely beta work.

Mirror, Mirror, Morgana  
by **misscam**

Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.

II

There are these dreams Morgana has.

II

The castle is ice, and she walks in its hallways listening to the echo. Her step, echo. Her step, echo. There are no other sounds.

Sometimes, she passes someone frozen – a knight, a servant, a peasant, a noble, all glinting in the ice. As she walks further into the castle, lone figures start making groups. There is even Arthur and Gwen, hands strangely linked.

She doesn't pause at that, but walks on until she sees Uther, as cold in ice as he is in life.

This is him, she thinks. This is his cold to blame for it all.

"Morgana," Merlin says behind her. She doesn't turn at once, still staring at Uther. Somehow, this is not enough. She wants him to suffer, wants him to life miserably, not die encased in ice where nothing can hurt him anymore.

"I hate him," she says; the echo says it back at her.

"You can still love others," Merlin says, and she turns to see him looking at Arthur. "You can still love, Morgana. You must love, or your heart is..."

"Cold?" she asks bitterly. "He made me cold."

"You can be cold without being ice," Merlin says, but it's not his voice anymore, far older than him. When she touches him, he is snow and so very soft in her palm.

She holds on until the snow melts and everything around her is a raging torrent that will kill her.

II

She is a child again, running through the hallways. Arthur is right behind her, and if he catches her, she will have to admit he is better than all other boys and her.

So she runs, giggling when she has breath, laughing on the inside when she doesn't.

He'll never catch her. Never ever never.

She turns around to see how far he is behind, but he is aging as he runs now, no longer a boy and sprinting into a man.

Whens she runs into something hard, she almost screams, but it is drowned by the dark cloth she finds her face surrounded by.

"Morgana," Uther says, lifting her up as she now screams in delight. "Morgana, Morgana, Morgana."

When Uther sets her down again, she looks around, but Arthur is walking away from her and somehow she knows, that for all he can't catch her, she can't catch him either.

II

Fire. The fire is burning her and she screams into the smoke, thickening it. Fire, fire everywhere. She is burning and they are all watching,

"Witch," Uther says. He sounds like ice, cold and sharp, and brittle too, she realises, as if it can easily break.

"Witch," Arthur says. He does sound sad, and he's not hiding it, his eyes reflecting it too.

"Witch," Gwen says. Her eyes are downcast, but her pose is regal, and her voice sounds like a command.

"Witch," Gaius says. He sounds tired and old, but when she looks at him, she sees a young man, eyes glowing.

"Witch," Merlin says. He sounds like he is stating a fact, no judgement, and when she looks at him, he merely holds out a hand.

"Witch," he says again. "Just say it, Morgana. Do you not trust Uther to love you after that word?"

"No," she says, and the fires rage on until they're all she can hear.

II

Mordred's head is resting in her lap, and she strokes his hair as he sleeps; their shadows are as one on the wall.

II

"You don't see me," Gwen says. As she walks, her dress begins to change; cotton to silk, yellow to gold, plain to embroidery. The flowers in her hair are turning to gemstone, the curls in her hair weaving into a crown.

"You're a servant," Morgana says. The words taste sharp in her mouth and she can't quite swallow them.

"You can still see," Gwen says, and she smiles as Arthur passes them, his eyes lingering on Gwen much longer than is quite polite. "You did at one time."

"What did you want me to see, Guinevere?"

Gwen pauses. When she turns, she is no longer dressed like a royal, but not as a servant either.

"Who I am. Not what I am," she says simply, and Morgana can't look away.

II

"Mother!" Morgana calls; the only answer is the echo.

She can't shape something she has never known, not even in a dream.

II

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall," Uther says, his face so close to hers she can feel his breath. His fingers are braided in her hair as if they're a part of it.

"I hate you," she tells him.

"I love you," he says.

"You hate what I am."

"I love you," he says again, and she shakes her head.

"You can't love when you have that much hate in your heart. You can't."

"Mirror, mirror, Morgana," he says, and kisses her softly on the forehead.

II

Arthur walks and Merlin walks beside him, not one step behind as a servant should, but rather in step as a partner would. They walk, and Camelot shimmers as they do, changing, changing, changing.

Growing.

Not just Camelot anymore. Camelot, eye of a mighty kingdom. Camelot, prosperous and fair and bright, growing ever more so with each step Arthur and Merlin make.

King Arthur walking in step with what can't be only his servant, but who is Merlin.

II

"Forgive me," her father says. She is curled by his feet, holding on to his leg as if it is a lifeline, knowing it still won't hold him to life. He is dead. "Forgive me, my daughter."

She can't. Forgiveness is taking his guilt and making it weightless; she can't. Everything weighs too much, and she is tired.

"Forgive me," her father says, but when she looks up at him, it is Uther's face.

II

The old man walks at her side, his cape never seeming to brush the ground even as it is far too long for him and should.

"Who are you?" she asks, and he laughs.

"Old age is a powerful disguise. Would you recognise yourself in it?"

For a fleeting moment, a mirror seems to glimmer in the air before them; the old face looking back at her from her own doesn't seem at all familiar.

"Who are you?" she asks again,

"Emrys," he says lightly, and the shadows around them seem to whisper the name. "It might have been you and me, Morgana. Once and future, as Arthur and Gwen are. Now you must be the past."

She closes her eyes when he kisses the knuckles on her hand; his lips feel soft as a boy's.

"You were my sorrow," he tells her.

II

Uther.

Uther as the heart of Camelot, every beat like poison. She wants to hold it in his hands, hold it until it stills and the poison doesn't flow anymore. She wants to stab it until it bleeds and doesn't merely bring blood to others.

Uther. Uther is the darkness.

Around him stands Merlin and Arthur and Gwen and Gaius and even the shadow of her father, and she knows they don't see. They think the heart can live as long as the rest of the body is healthy. As long as Arthur's heart can one day take the place and heal everything.

Nothing can heal death. It's too late with a new heart then.

"Come on," Morgause says gently, standing in the doorway, the light catching her without streaming through her. "Come, my sister."

"Don't," Merlin says, but she still turns away from him. How can he know what it is like to see something no one else does?

"I see," Morgause says softly, holding out a hand and Morgana takes it. The light never quite seems to warm her even as she walks into it, but she still smiles at it.

"Is this a dream?" she asks, and Morgause laughs.

"No, my sister. It's more like waking up."

They walk on, hand in hand, and when Morgana turns to look back, the light has obscured what she left behind and she can't see it anymore.

II

"Morgana," she says to her reflection, willing herself to see. "Morgana."

When she touches the mirror, it shatters, as if made of nothing harder than ice.

II

There were these dreams Morgana had.

They were never just that.

FIN


End file.
